Megaliths

The following are extracts of my forthcoming book

"THE SECRET CIVILIASATION OF THE SACRED STONES"

BUT WHY MEGALITHS?

I have been time and again asked this question. Why so hullabaloo about megaliths? After all, these all are sepulchral stones raised on a dead tribal or maybe in the memory of their departed, they would say. That’s all (as simple as that).

That’s all? Do you think all these are as simple as they sound?

No it isn’t.

They are a mystery which the modern man can perhaps never fully understand.

Besides Megaliths are sources of history. The historian does not find megaliths worthy and dignified enough to feature them as sources of history of India. Honestly he doesn’t know how to fit them in, after all they are tribal in origin and these people are barely present in Indian history as they do not have a written history of their own. Sadly scholars have only the ancient texts to guide them in constructing the history of our country.

Admitted the Mundas and the Santals do not have a written account of their own but they have their folklores and these folklore are oral history therefore are as good and authentic as any historical elucidation and perhaps even more. Folktales cannot be engineered as a book and even more significant all the tribals more or less speak the same tales with marginal variant! Oral history needs to be revered and accepted by historians.

Megaliths carpet the entire expanse of this holy nation from Kashmir to Kerela, Itanagar to Gandhinagar blaring loudly as the archaeological testimony of the overwhelming presence of the non Aryan aborigines in prehistoric and ancient India. Yet megaliths are not regarded as source of history.

The Sathpatha Brahman (XII-8-1) affirm that there are two type of burials; one of the Daivyas meaning of the Aryans’ and the other of the Asuras which is of the Dravidians’ or the tribals’. The scripture says that the Vedic or the Aryan burials should have four corners and should be placed on the earth while the tribal Asura types is shaped round and is separated from the ground with the help of stones.

JHARKHAND AND MEGALITHS

They make strange bedfellows. Save a ‘count them on your fingers’ never ever Jharkhand has been talked of whenever megaliths have been discussed. Perhaps it was after 1998 that megaliths have begun to reach the common masses and the world at large is eventually informed of her rich trove of megaliths.

DOLMENS, STONE CIRCLES, CAIRNS, MENHIRS, PHALLUSES, VULVAS you name it; Jharkhand has them all. Travelling inaccessible and virgin terrains I discovered the numerous assortments of megalith and brought forth to the world. All the megalithic monuments of here are of the proto Austric tribals as the Hos, Mundas and of the Dravidian speaking Oraon tribals, being created by them perhaps from the early Chalcolithic era to the modern times.

THE MEGALITHS OF JHARKHAND

SASANDIRI & BIRDIRI

Jharkhand is a treasure house of megaliths like that of any other state in the country. There is no confirmed report that who was the first discoverer of megaliths of Jharkhand. There is news that one Mr T.F.Peppe a deputy sub agent of the British government was perhaps the first person to record the finds of megaliths in Sherghatti, Bundu, Tamar, Burunda, and Chokahatu. However in 1873 receiving information from Peppe it was Mr.E.T.Dalton was the first to do a scientific survey of the megalithic graves of Chokahatu.

Dalton even discovered many megaliths of Chaibasa and Singhbhum and of Lohardagga. S.C.Roy too in his legendary “Mundas and their country” too mention megaliths.

Visiting Jharkhand is an experience of lifetime, not only that it is a beautiful state with stunning hills, coy rivers, the primitive woods, the oldest tribes and scores of other reasons but also for the simplest fact that it is perhaps one of the few places in the entire world which still erects megaliths since perhaps the Neolithic times in an uninterrupted tradition.

What are megaliths called in Jharkhand? You see each and every Munda , an Oraon or even an Asura village has a megalithic burial ground, known as the Haragarhi or a Harsali or even a Pathalgarhi.

Strictly speaking however megaliths in Jharkhand are chiefly divided in to two forms: The SASANDIRI and the BIRDIRI or BIDIRI. These are Austric words to describe megaliths.

The sasandiri of the Hos is actually a flat slab of stone placed on the dead whom they bury in their courtyard. They do not have stone stands underneath the capstones.

The Ho regards the menhirs as Bidiris. They are placed as a memorial after the burial and raising of the sasandiri. Strangely though their sasandiris of the yesteryears were Mundaic type dolmens and the bidiris were placed adjacent to such dolmens. These are believed to be ghost seats popularly known as ‘Kursis’ or chairs as after the completion of both the megaliths adjoining each other they look like one.

The Mudaric Sasandiri is also a dolmen. The capstone is a large flat slab of stone placed on four or six stone stands. Originally this was meant to be a family vault where the bones of the dead of the same family were placed inside as a second burial. These megaliths were opened and such burial bones were inserted. Today the burial significance of such sasandiris is done away with in course of time and they are used as memorials.

The Birdiri or the menhirs of the Mundas is also raised as a memorial stone raised in honour or memory of the departed. These stones are also used as boundary markers. The tribals raise such birdiris or menhirs for any memorable episode; a child being born, a marriage held and so forth. Menhirs all over the world have many things in common; they face the due east or to the point of the sunrise of the day when the person died, the top is tapered or one flank of the menhir is inclined. The three reasons mentioned here indicate to the fact that the structural design of these stones are such that they are created with the sky in mind. Both the tapering and the incline on the side of the menhir are such because they are made to parallel the left of the hemispherical sky. Therefore if the menhir faces the east then the left of the megalith is made parallel to the hemispherical sky.

THE MODERN DAY MUNDARIC SASANDIRI (DOLMEN) AND THE BIRDIRI (MENHIR) AT THE BACK. Note the alignment

ONE TYPICAL MENHIR CUT IN ACCORDANCE TO THE SKIES ABOVE

Menhirs, the entire world over have definite yet common shapes which to my understanding are symbolical of something unknown. As their left sides are made parallel to the left of semi-circular sky suggests the fact that these stones are female in implication or is contributing to the contemporary matriarchal social order. Today the menhirs are made in the forms they were made even 4000 years ago as a mere tradition, devoid of the original connotation.

Megaliths of Jharkhand varies from region to region as the tribals here are segregated from place to place therefore their typology varies accordingly. The Asura dolmen slabs are large as the ones of the courtyards of the Hos. The Munda menhirs are broad while the ones of the Hos are tall and slim.

The Munda dolmens have flat capstones. The most enigmatic megaliths are the ones of Hazaribag and of North Jharkhand. The dolmens of this place are huge very much unlike the present Mundaric dolmen of the present times and of the ones of 2000 yrs ago. These have stunning resemblance with the ones of UK. South Jharkhand does not have such dolmens.

The peculiarity of Hazaribag megaliths is that they house stone triangles something which I have not noticed in any megaliths in Jharkhand not in any other parts of India.

If any one other than Hazaribag knows of triangles in megaliths please let me know. These triangles face hills or any cardinal points. If the megaliths of Hazaribag were Mundaric in origin as the Mundas resided in here prior to their migration to Ranchi, then megalithism has changed amidst them as they do not make any megaliths in the likes of Hazaribag .

The Ranchi menhirs which are primarily Mundaric and the ones of Ho are more straight placed and I haven’t seen any stone circles there. The only stone circle I have discovered in Jharkhand is in Banadag.

MENHIRS AS ASTROLOGICAL AND MATHEMATICAL MODELS:

        My sites have been visited by numerous scholars, professional archaeologists, even tourists (Jharkhand Tourism has eventually paid heed to my requests and has put megaliths in their publicity brochures: a rare feat indeed. Megaliths today in Jharkhand perhaps for the first time in the country has been featured as major tourists spots – thanks to our relentless propaganda of megaliths since many years now) Strangely unlike the European and the British archaeologists, their India counterparts denies to associate megaliths with astronomy.

But my researches have perceived that many megaliths like that of Punkree Burwadih is a creation of precise planning and this can be observed in the manner the menhirs are placed and positioned in alignment to the prominent peaks of the encircling mountains. The process of the linear positioning of the menhirs in this complex along with the ratio of the placement of the stones discloses acute mathematics and precise engineering.

THE PREVAILING MOTHER GODDESS CULT:

         Megaliths were temples of the tribals who raised the stone structures to honour the glory of the Great Goddesses of the matriarchal society of the prehistoric world during Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Iron Age times. Primitive Indian society worshipped the now forgotten Goddesses of both Ur and Wer who in the more recent years have been amalgamated and have been converted into Urwer, the Goddess of fertility. However in South India Ur in the olden days was a village assembly for people of all classes.

         The prevailing primitive tribal society worshipped the Recumbent Mother Goddess. The most popular form of the image of this goddess is mountains or hills of a specific form where in the centre there would be a bulge resembling the fertile pregnant belly. Information of small images of pregnant Mother Goddesses has been received from all over the world. India is surprisingly no exception. In India small Mother Goddess images have found from Chirand in Bihar, Jorwe in Maharastra. I have seen one such small idol in a private collection in my hometown of Hazaribag here in Jharkhand. It was believed to have been found in Godda, in Jharkhand.

         Life sized recumbent images of such Goddesses have been discovered from Kajur, Goa etc. I have discovered the more primitive ones in and around Hazaribag. One such Goddess is carved from a big chunk of granite giving faint but significant touches to bring out the form. The key feature of the image is the vulva crafted out of a natural fissure in the rock. The ‘yoni’ of the recumbent goddess has been crafted so marvellously from the natural crack that it is stunningly lifelike comparable only to the real one.

The first megaliths were therefore the temples of the archaic times of the mother tribes when the tribal world was purely matriarchal. The sky father and the earth mother concept were very strong then. The concept is still formidable in India. The hunter gathers tribes refrain from agriculture as they believe that this would pain the mother earth.

There are festivals in India among the tribes of Jharkhand who celebrate Sarhul when the Sal (Shorea Robusta) trees blossom. The prevalent belief is that this indicates that the mother earth is menstruating as she is fertile now.

Another festival among the Hindus is the festival of the Ambabuchi which occurs a day after the mid summer sunrise. The festival is of the Goddess at Kamakhya in Guwahati, Assam represented by the vulva of the deity, becoming fertile as she menstruates. Therefore all over eastern India the farmers would not plough the land for three days nor would they drop anything heavy on the ground as they feel that this would pain the Mother earth as she is menstruating.

All these are remains of the widespread Mother Goddess religion prevalent during antiquity when the world was matriarchal.

A megalithic temple therefore was an accessory of this wide prevalent Mother Goddess cult.

Designed at SUN CYBER SPACE, Hazaribag